New St. Charles Parish ER under construction

A second round of bids for a new emergency room at St. Charles Parish Hospital landed within the hospital's budget and the hospital plans a ground-breaking for Sept. 21.

The parish Hospital Board awarded the $3.5 million contract to Aegis Construction of LaPlace last week.

"We're very happy with the outcome because we had eight bidders and all were within that range," said Federico Martinez Jr., the parish-owned hospital's chief executive officer.

The building, which increases the size of the emergency department from 3,000 square feet to about 11,000 square feet, is designed to move patients who have been treated and who are ambulatory into a waiting room designed for them, freeing ER beds for other patients.

Voters approved an $11.5 million bond issue for the project and other improvements last year from a tax dedicated to hospital construction. The balance of the money went to buying and refurbishing the hospital's east bank ambulance station, buying five new ambulances and other equipment.

Earlier this year, the Hospital Board rejected bids for the project when the low bid received totaled $3.9 million, several hundred thousand dollars higher than the project budget. The re-designed work eliminated a storm-resistant skylight and lighting that would have made the hospital more visible from the top of the Hale Boggs Bridge.

The contract calls for the construction to be completed in 420 days, Martinez said.